john waters

Image of the day: France is burning. By Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images [h/t The New York Times]

The latest news from the surreal hellscape that is our nation’s government is that Trump is banning transgender people from the military. Doesn’t it seem like the right wing always comes up with a culture wars bone to pick when their political/economic agenda (Russia investigation, healthcare repeal, etc…) is under siege? At any rate, this is terrible, but if laughing is therapeutic for you, watch this Samantha Bee bit in which she provides commentary to rambling speeches made by potentially drunk Republican congressmen about trans people in the military. How is our country this insane? [Facebook]

Pussy Riot and Les Enfants Terribles are fundraising for “an immersive theater project” in which the audience would get to experience the Pussy Riot ordeal. That includes everything from their infamous performance in a Russian church to their crazy trial and time in a labor camp. Sounds fun? [Kickstarter]

Remember “Chewbacca Mom”? The Texas woman who rose to brief, unlikely fame because she laughed so hard wearing a Chewbacca mask in a parking lot on Facebook Live? Writer Alyssa Bereznak does, as she’s been following Candace Payne via Google alerts for the past year. Here she has a timeline of the viral sensation’s rise and fall in public favor. It’s fascinating. The internet is a weird (and judgemental) place. [The Ringer]

Phew. After much outrage (including plenty of cute tributes from artists included in this link) Microsoft announced that MS Paint would NOT be disappearing, but will be available for download from their app store. [artnet News]

Rumors have been flying that beloved Baltimore dive bar The Club Charles will be closing, starting August 1st, indefinitely. Some say it will reopen following renovations, but there are few details here. The 66 year old institution is basically like the evening office of the city’s art/theater/literati scene. It’s John Waters’ favorite bar, among countless other filmmakers, musicians, artists, and drunks. I (Michael) will be devastated if this is a permanent closure. [City Paper]

The Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan 1994 Museum will partner with @popculturediedin2009—an archive dedicated to the drama of the aughts—to mine the decade’s pop-culture. I’m not sure what to think of this. On the one hand, these scandals may already be a source of nostalgia, and therefore hold some enjoyment. On the other, is it not too soon for this? I keep thinking there’s got to be a better use of intellectual engagement than this—particularly given our current political climate. [artnet News]

Karen Loew makes the case for the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, and looks at what other cities are doing to stop the spread of chain stores, closure of neighborhood retail, and “high rent blight” that’s been hitting Manhattan so hard. Basically, New York is way behind on protecting legacy businesses. This is something every gallerist or artist with a studio (or really, anyone who enjoys bodega food) should be getting behind. [City Lab]

Related: The Zapatista-inspired Eastside Café (which functions as an art/activism/community space in East Los Angeles) managed to stand its ground against gentrification and buy their building from the landlord when developers came knocking. Amazing. [Remezcla]

2070 photographs by Annie Leibovitz were purchased by a wealthy patron in 2012 and donated to The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax. That was a boon for Leibovitz who was struggling financially at the time. The problem is, while the donor purchased the work for 4.75 million, it’s valued at 20 million and the Canadian government doesn’t want to sign off on the deduction. The panel tasked with approving the donation has accepted that only some of the photographs are art. Also, it seems the valuation of the portfolio is less than that of the individual works, thus creating the disparity of value. [The New York Times]

A score for Acquavella Gallery: Phillip de Montebello, former head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will join their staff as curator of special exhibitions. [The New York Times]

Applications close in four days for the free 360 Xochi Quetzal artist/writer residency on Lake Chapala, Mexico. This place looks beautiful. [360 Xochi Quetzal]

This week you’re in for a weird ride. From Aaron Pexa’s installation inspired by faeries from Welsh mythology (opening Wednesday at UrbanGlass) to a show of fake John Waters memorabilia Thursday night at La MaMa, there’s a lot of idiosyncratic happenings to partake in. Add to that itinerary a Friday night group show of emotion-altering colors (like the opposite of a mood ring!) at Small Editions and Eva Papamargariti’s speculative mutant frogs at TRANSFER on Saturday.

The last few building booms have contributed some pretty heinous new additions to New York’s cityscape, but this might just be the worse. I’m not sure we can even call this ill-proportioned stack of claustrophobia-inducing hotel rooms clad in signifiers of “Brooklyn-ness” (Brick! Street Art!) and mismatched decor trends architecture. This is straight-up an attraction out of a theme park, which I suppose makes sense considering it’s called “The Williamsburg Hotel”. The most cringe-inducing detail? A grand ballroom designed to “reflect the derelict buildings of Detroit”. [Dezeen]

This is awesome. Baltimore nonprofit art space/residency Creative Alliance is throwing a giant dance party tomorrow in support the city’s status as a “sanctuary city”. Bailar Sin Miedo will feature Mexican food vendors, bachata lessons, and live music. [Creative Alliance]

The Hard Times has now fully replaced The Onion as my newsfeed’s satirical headline supplier of choice: “Moving to Brooklyn Gave Me the Confidence Needed to Finally Start Wearing This Hat”. [The Hard Times]

Here’s a sneak peak at the new Marciano Museum opening in LA later this month. The inaugural exhibition is inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “Unpacking My Library.” From the few images here, though, it doesn’t really seem like the Marciano Collection is particularly good? [Los Angeles Times]

Rioters in Portland smashed the windows of Michael Parsons Gallery, which unbeknownst to them, ironically, was showing paintings of last year’s riots by Alex Lilly. Is this a Portlandia sketch for the Trump era? [Oregon Live]

What’s the best way to understand art? One tactic is to see a lot of it. Another is to spend time with artists. And yet another is to curate an entire show around the idea that artist practices are God’s gift to the world and include as many studios, meditations on studios, and virtual studio renderings as humanly possible. Guess which approach Biennale curator Christine Macel takes in the Giardini section. A look at the show below. Arsenale pics here.

Opera singer Dmitri Hvorostovsky retired from his singing career in 2015 when he learned he would need to be treated for a brain tumor. He made a surprise return to the Met Opera’s gala concert last night, though, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Met’s home at Lincoln Center. What a performance. [The New York Times]

Looks like one recommendation of New York’s cultural plan is a major redistribution of funds, so that the smaller organizations focused on diversity get more money and the giant institutions receive less. This is a good start. [The New York Times]

artnet News’s new columnist, Tim Schneider, discusses my report on new commission agreements between artists and gallerists in the emerging field. He takes issue of Muriel Guepin’s model of taking all the profit at an art fair until her costs are covered. I agree that this model isn’t one that should be emulated, but a 60/40 split at an art fair only doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me. Fairs are really expensive, and at the lower end of the market, its really difficult for galleries to recoup their costs. Perhaps the art fairs are the real fat cats here? [artnet News]

This picture of Martha Stewart giving Donald Trump the bird at Frieze is hilarious. She’s standing between Andres Serrano photographs we deemed terrible of Trump and Snoop Dog. [e-online]

The University of Montana School of Art is offering a fully online Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art. I suspect studio art only means graphic design, but still—is there any way this isn’t a total sham? [kpax]

John Waters will show “weirdly Baltimore-based” art at The Venice Biennale this year. (More sign art.) The show opens Wednesday and we’ll be there. [The Baltimore Sun]

Christine Macel, the chief curator at of the Pompidou Center in Paris and this year’s Venice Biennale will be focusing on art by artists and for artists, not politics. [The New York Times]

South Dakota, one of the nation’s reddest states, receives the fifth-highest amount of NEA funding per capita. Michael Cooper tours the state, and looks at where that money is going. [The New York Times]

Are Turkish artists moving away from politically-charged subject matter? It seems so. As the right-wing government clamps down on freedoms, artists are retreating to labor intensive studio practices, if the works selected for the sprawling survey Mamut 5 are any indication. [The Art Newspaper]

Filipino art collector and developer Robbie Antonio is launching a line of prefabricated museums (seriously) that aspiring governments, nonprofits, or collectors can buy for less than $1 million. What’s up with all the masonry walls here? [artnet News]

An interview with artist Christopher Kline, on why he’s using musical theater to tell the story of his small New York hometown at the Tate Liverpool. [Art in Liverpool]

OMG. John Waters is leading a camp for grown ups in Connecticut this Summer. I want to go! [ARTnews]

This is such a good idea. To combat the affordable housing crisis, there’s a London scheme to produce and sell totally no-frills, “unfinished” homes for a fraction of the cost. Considering how frequently people want to replace tacky cabinets or laminate flooring anyway, I for one would actually prefer to live in one of these. [The Guardian]

Headline of the day: “Stick-Wielding Woman On The Loose Near Asian Art Museum”. Watch out, San Francisco! [SFist]

In a past life, Mexico City’s Museo Universitario Del Chopo was a punk flea market. Today, it’s gone back to it roots (kinda).Punk. Sus rastros en el arte contemporáneo is a fantastic survey of both punk and its impact on contemporary art. But when so much of that influence has been on video art, the logic of a gallery presentation is questionable.
The show feels a bit like it should be a film festival but has been squeezed into a white box. Good luck trying to sit through more than a dozen videos with overlapping sound on different loops.

John Waters favorite films of 2016. Looks like I have some work to do: I’ve seen none of them. [ArtForum]

Ben Davis’s article on the lesson of Trump’s election for art — the lesson being that our influence is limited as we pretty much uniformly rejected him and he still got elected—is worth a read if you haven’t already. We linked to the article back when it first came out, but it’s making the rounds again, so it’s in our links again. [artnet News]

Those who want the real skinny on Pizzagate and don’t mind having the bejesus scared out of them, should listen to this podcast. All the details are there. We’ve got some huge problems coming down the pipe. [Reply All, hat tip: Liv Moe]

Speaking of which, here’s an interview with an artist who was targeted by pizzagaters. The interviewer and artist aren’t quite as informed on the subject as I would like, but still, useful voices. Notably, the comment section on this article is closed. I can hear the trolls crying censorship already. [Hyperallergic]